How to save your parking spot in Google Maps
The new option lets you manually save a parking location, take notes, and snap a photo.
Google Maps is finally starting to understand the headache that is parking. Earlier this year it added a parking availability feature that let you know how hard it would be to find a spot at your destination, but the latest addition to Maps is one we’ve been waiting years to get.
Google has long offered a parking reminder card in Google Now, but it’s always been kind of flaky (and never really belonged there). With the latest version of Maps on iOS and Android, Google is giving it a new home, right inside the Maps app. And it's a snap to use. When you tap the blue location dot on the map on your Android phone, you’ll see a new "Save your parking" option, (or "Set as parking location" on iOS), which will let you chart your position right inside Maps.
Once you tap it, Google Maps will automatically save your current location inside Maps and add a reminder to your notification pane. However, while the location it sets will usually be good enough, you can also jot down some landmarks in a note field on the same screen as well as add a photo. There's also a timer alert for metered or zoned parking, as well as an ability to share your information, which will send the address, notes, and a link to the location in Maps.
Of note, this feature is in addition to the automatic parking detection in Google Maps for iOS that will automatically add your parking location to Maps when you leave your car. Last week, Google finally added the Timeline feature to the iOS app, letting users access their trip history on their iPhones like Android users have been able to do for years.
The newest version of Maps is rolling out to the Play Store and iOS App Store. And as always, you can side load the latest Google-signed APK from APKMirror.
The impact on you on the road: This is one of the most overdue features in Google Maps, so much so that even Apple has had it in Maps app for a while. We don’t know why it took Google so long to add it, but it's one we'll be using quite often.
This story, "How to save your parking spot in Google Maps" was originally published by Greenbot.
